The small scale allows companies to be ﬂexible, this is crucial in order to adapt to very diverse market conditions and economic turbulence. In addition, small companies have no other option than to take risk in order to leave their mark, notably if they are start-ups. Small companies habitually lack ﬁnancial resources though, and it is precisely here where larger organisations can decide to take on a calculated risk and allocate some of their funds, in order to outsource processes, products or development.

Therefore, it’s important not just to foster the growth of small creative businesses, but entire networks where they can come into contact with the larger ones. And the successful cities of the 21st century are those that can do that through clusters, clever place branding, and a real understanding of what it takes to compete at a global level.
We’re still largely hampered by politicians who cannot see past their own national boundaries or, at best, look at competing solely with a neighbouring nation, when that has not been the reality for at least 20 years.
There are exceptions where companies themselves have done the environmental scanning and found organizations to collaborate withâ€”such as the ones Ilaria mentions in her article. But there’s no practical reason other than a lack of vision that they are the exception rather than the rule.
She gives three examples: Tesco collaborated with upcycle fashion brand, From Somewhere, to use textile waste, which has seen three collections produced; Levi’s is reﬁtting vintage 501s with Reformation, so customers know their old jeans aren’t going to a landﬁll; and Worn Again, partnering with Virgin, Royal Mail and Eurostar, is making bags out of the likes of postal workers’ decommissioned storm jackets.
The innovations, of course, need not be in fashion or even sustainability. Look back through the last generation of innovations and many have come from smaller companies that needed the right leg up. Google, too, was started in someone’s home.
I’ve been pushing the “think global” aspect of my own businesses, as well as encouraging others, for a lot of the 25 years Jack Yan & Associates has existed. It’s why most of our ventures have looked outside our own borders for sales. When we went on to bulletin boards for the ﬁrst time at the turn of the 1990s, it was like a godsend for a kid who marvelled at the telex machine at my Dad’s work. It’s second-nature for anyone my age and younger to see this planet as one that exists independently of national borders, whether for trade or for personal friendships.
As this generation makes its mark, I am getting more excitedâ€”though I remain cautious of institutions that keep our thinking so locally focused because that is simply what the establishment is used to. Yet it’s having the courage to take the leap forward that will make this country great: small nations, like small companies, should be, and can be, hotbeds of innovation.
Create those clusters, and create some wonderful championsâ€”and the sort of independent thinking Kiwis are known for can go far beyond our borders.

Over the last week, we’ve added font-face linked fonts to three of our websites: Lucire, Lucire Men and Lucire Home.
The difference is that we haven’t done it to the titles, but the body type this time. It’s a test-bed for our latest design, which I’ll reveal more information on shortly. In the case of Lucire Men, the same family has been used for the headlines.
I realize that some recommend that the body type not be linked, since it adds to the download time. I was very conscious of this. However, we have tested the pages on a slower, older computer and while there is a slight lag, it’s barely noticeable. The type already appears on the page and simply changes to the linked fonts shortly afterward.
Call me a sucker for double-f ligatures, but I’m enjoying the fact they come up without coding in the HTML for them:

It was also a good chance to see how the new family worked as web fonts, and how they hinted. There are a few quirks, but nothing too serious. It’s our ﬁrst time showing off a new design in use before launch.
The Cleartype application isn’t that perfect on Windows, but it appears beautifully on Android and Ubuntu. We’ve also been testing the typefaces in-house on Apple Macintosh OS X, Windows Vista and Windows 7.
I thank Dan Gordon for giving me his opinion on how the type displayed on the three sites (Lucire was the last to be converted). The lower-trafﬁc ones were ﬁrst, serving as test-beds.
I’m now tempted to use this family for this personal site and blog, once I ﬁgure out what the new look and feel will be.

Here’s a quick post for Easter, from my friend Wayne Thompson of Australian Type Foundry. If you want decent typographic puns, you need a typeface designerâ€”not some of those groan-worthy ones that get circulated by those outside the industry.